It is an interactive wonderland worthy of a cover charge. It is a bedroom disguised as a virtual museum of hockey, perfectly ordered and brilliantly gleaming with trophies and plaques, jerseys and posters, a little boy’s dream documented and photographed so thoroughly and displaying such obvious success you have to assume this particular boy has gone on to greatness.

And you would be right. But it gets even better. It is history overlapping, Patrick Kane starring as Forrest Gump.

Kovalchuk credits his father for handing down an intense, competitive drive, a drive Thrashers opponents have seen up close over the past two weeks.

It’s a competitive hunger that former teammate Dany Heatley got to know well in Atlanta, and saw again recently in Ottawa.

“It all goes back to hockey,” said Heatley, who still keeps in close touch with Kovalchuk. “How hungry he is to score. ... You can see that in games, his competitiveness. What I find is he’s like that in practice, scrimmages, a two-on-one drill — he wants to score. He’s hungry to score. He wants to win.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Calgary Flames coach Mike Keenan didn’t exactly leap to the defence of his injured centre Daymond Langkow on Friday….

“I looked at the tape again today,” said Keenan. “I know Matt Cooke, I coached him, he’s a little bit of a hunter, and you know he’s out there, you know he’s coming at you, and you know he’s going to body you.

“But he didn’t leave his feet. He hit him hard into the boards; at the same time, you have a responsibility to know that players like that are out there. It’s a fine line between playing the game hard; he cracked him good, and Daymond maybe should have positioned himself in a more protective manner so he wouldn’t have had the whiplash effect against the glass.”

A league source confirmed to the Sun last night that the Senators are negotiating with the NHL to open the season Oct. 4-5 at the Globen Arena in Stockholm.

Reports in Swedish newspapers yesterday indicated the club’s opponent would be Sidney Crosby’s Penguins, but negotiations are ongoing with the NHL.

While the Senators had been linked to a game in Prague, it’s believed the NHL has turned its focus to a Lightning-Rangers matchup because of the Czech connection with New York’s Jaromir Jagr and Martin Straka.

You have to hand it to the Blackhawks. Considering marketing never has been their strong suit, they’re getting a ton of mileage out of airing Sunday’s home game against the Red Wings on Comcast SportsNet.

The Hawks could register twice, perhaps even three times the number of viewers they have for road games for Sunday’s game. The team’s road games are averaging a 0.4 rating on CSN this season (one local ratings point is worth 34,550 homes).

CSN likely would be happy with a rating between 1.0 and 1.5 Sunday, and would do cartwheels over a 2.0. Much of it could hinge on the Bears. The best-case scenario would be for their game against Oakland to end at 6 p.m., allowing fans to switch their channels quickly to catch the opening face-off. A long Bears game that goes into overtime will put a dent in the ratings.

Given the respective stenches emanating from both camps, a cynic might suggest The Battle of Alberta has been replaced by The Cattle of Alberta, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of sizzle on tonight’s steak.

Nothing fuels a barn burner like animosity and desperation and the Flames and Oilers will be bringing plenty of both to a unique and unusually important showdown in Cowtown.

Nashville coach Barry Trotz is right—these Red Wings are no longer soft around the edges. They were every bit as physical as the Blue Jackets. Niklas Kronwall’s hit on Sergei Fedorov absolutely set the tone for the game. Fedorov ended up taking a penalty moments later and the Red Wings scored on the power play.

—All the Red Wings’ goals were the result of hard work in front of the net or the willingness to drive to the net.

Jason Spezza, who was hoping to play today, didn’t take part in the Senators’ workout, and is now aiming to return to action Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres. “He wouldn’t be playing if this was a playoff game,” said coach John Paddock. “I thought there might be some consideration (to him playing today) based on how he was thinking ... Until he can practise with the team for 60 minutes hard then he’s not close to playing. I hope he’s on the ice with us Monday or Tuesday at the latest.”

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